FN’s Black Box for Guns
This nifty gadget, made by FN Herstal, can be installed anywhere on a gun where it can be squeezed in, such as the pistol grip in the above photo. It can record shot count, firing sequences and more.
Read more about it at SayUncle.
While many people’s instinct may be that this is a bad thing, I can see this really helping with maintenance scheduling for the military/police and I can see this actually helping the user in litigation rather than hurting them. Naturally this should not be a required item, but rather elective.
My WAG is that it works by measuring acoustic signatures and classifying them with a bank of matched filters, or possibly it could contain a MEMs IMU to measure inertial modes. This would allow differentiation between a gun being fired nearby and the user’s weapon. The rest of it is most likely just standard digital counting to infer timing.
A really basic version of something like this would be a good electrical engineering junior/senior design project.
-Don
u want some pics of that ??? like with the gun and all ?
This is going to be an useful asset for SWAT Teams so they can count who shot what and when.
On the other hand, civilian applications are rather limited.
Finally a gadget from FN thats useful. Is the grip modular in size?
lol, if you have some, please sent them through. My email is on the contact page (link at the top).
well i will take them tomorow or on friday … i got to go to FN …
I have some other Fn stuff to show u
SOCOM has had a weapon shot counter (WSC) requirement for quite awhile. The collected data will allow them to preemptively replace parts before they wear out and/or break.
Daniel, do you know whose system they used?
As far as I know, there has not been a contract award yet.
This actually could be very useful. As previously stated, it could help with preventive maintenance, but could also be tied into magazine ammunition count. If the sensor suite also contains accelerometers, it may be able to measure impulse, with data being used to tailor ammunition for consistency.
As long as the data is both local and eraseable, this may not be a terrible thing, as long as use and installation is completely voluntary.
Technology is increasingly becoming an integral part of firearms and/or their support systems. as the miniaturization of electronics continues you’ll see more and more interactive and smart devices become part of the firearm industry.
The Blackbox (and similar systems) is interesting, especially when combines with other peripherals like the Moving Red Dot.
http://www.fnherstal.com/index.php?id=573